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Coffee, Tea, Lawn Ghoul?

TAKEOFF Christine A. Aguilera of SkyMall says buyers are looking for laughs.Credit
Mark Peterman for The New York Times

NOT recession-proof: The Peeing Boy of Brussels Sculpture and Fountain. The Marshmallow Shooter. The Bunion Regulator.

And yet, the Zombie of Montclaire Moors, at $89.95, a ghoulish, 13-pound lawn sculpture, is still a top seller in the SkyMall catalog, the advertiser of unusual gadgets and other products you never knew you needed.

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Edge Baking Pan

The Pet Observation Porthole ($29.95), a clear plastic dome that can be mounted in a fence to “give an inquisitive canine a panoramic view of the world,” was so popular that it sold out. There also remains a huge demand for the cordless Keep Your Distance Bug Vacuum ($49.95), which can suction up flies, bees and spiders from up to two feet away.

The catalog’s annual circulation — via the seat pocket in front of you — is 20 million. Each year as many as 688 million bored and restless airline passengers can flip through its pages to ponder, in the latest edition, 2,000 products.

“If there is any piece of writing that defines our culture, I submit it’s the SkyMall catalog,” the author Bill McKibben wrote in a 2006 essay in Orion magazine, a nature and culture magazine published every two months. “To browse its pages is to understand the essential secret of American consumer life: That we’ve officially run out not only of things we need, but even of things we might plausibly desire.”

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Marshmallow Shooter

In its 19 years, the SkyMall catalog has served not only as a reflection of consumer behavior, but as a symbol of Americans’ love of shopping and curious delight with oddball items. SkyMall pulls together merchandise from hundreds of retailers, including Brookstone, Hammacher Schlemmer and Frontgate.

With fewer people flying or spending money, the economic downturn may have tilted the catalog’s sales slightly more toward utilitarian items — the No. 1 best seller this year is a 10-by-22-foot square of polyvinyl floor covering for the garage ($359), and the first truly frivolous item, the Giant Cupcake Pan, comes in at No. 17.

But last year, the Bunion Regulator, which costs $15.99 and straps onto the toe overnight to ease bunion pain, came in at No. 9 on the best-seller list, after the Breathe Fit Snoring Aid ($29.95) with the Marshmallow Shooter not far behind. Still, the recession does not appear to have diminished the catalog’s kitschy appeal.

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Zombie of Montclaire Moors

“Some may think that what we provide is just a good laugh,” Christine A. Aguilera, SkyMall’s president, said in an e-mail message after a phone interview. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But when you are standing eye to eye with a giant spider, you will be thankful you bought the Keep Your Distance Bug Vacuum.”

She added, “Even when times are tough, I think Americans are still optimistic about the future and interested in products that can make their lives a little easier. There is no secret category or line of goods that are recession-proof. What is recession resistant is innovation.”

In 2007, SkyMall embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign that drove up its Web sales. In January, SkyMall ventured into social networking territory, hiring an official corporate Twitterer. The tweets generated enough interest in the Wonder Woman Cuff bracelet ($24.95) that sales of the item more than doubled, Ms. Aguilera said.

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Keep Your Distance Bug VacuumCredit
Mark Peterman for The New York Times

“Philosophically, Americans like to have products, they like to have new things, they like to have things the neighbors don’t have,” Ms. Aguilera said in the phone interview. “I know that some of the products people find a little entertaining, comical, whimsical, but I don’t think there’s anything bad about that.”

Although there are plenty of practical items in the catalog, including suitcases and sneakers, it is the weird and wacky ones that tend to get the attention. Last year, one humor blog, Cracked.com, listed “The 5 most ridiculous SkyMall Products Money Can Buy,” putting at No. 4 “a baffling array of lawn ornaments” like the Zombie and the Peeing Boy of Brussels.

“What it does: Makes your house look like it’s occupied by a complete lunatic,” the post said.

Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University, said that the SkyMall catalog could have a particular appeal in the recession.

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Pet Observation Porthole

“Their audience is really looking for relief, not just something to alleviate boredom, but also a little bit of fantasy,” she said. “If you look at the products in there, they are lifestyle and gadget-oriented, both the sort of thing that transports you in a way. You can imagine a different lifestyle, imagining yourself out in the backyard barbecuing, with the kids shooting marshmallows, the birds chirping and life is good.”

Technically, SkyMall is an advertising company. Retailers pay to have their products listed in the catalog, which is published four times a year and changes most of its product selection each time. SkyMall has a variety of financial arrangements with its retailers, Ms. Aguilera said, and sometimes gets a cut of sales in addition to charging for advertising.

Some top-selling items, like the Bug Vacuum and the Edge Baking Pan ($39.95), which is meant to prevent burnt edges and gooey centers in brownies, appear regularly in consecutive catalogs, or else remain available on SkyMall.com. The products are advertised in the catalog, which is distributed through 13 airlines and Amtrak and on SkyMall.com.

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Bunion Regulator

SkyMall, which is privately held and based in Phoenix, would not release information on its profitability or total sales. Forty percent of SkyMall customers order merchandise through the company’s toll-free telephone number and the rest order through the SkyMall Web site; SkyMall said sales from the Web site alone were up last year, to $81.5 million from $75 million in 2007.

The top-selling categories for SkyMall include housewares and pet products, such as gates, indoor dog restrooms, pet drinking fountains and feeders, and the Bark Free Pro ($89.95), which uses ultrasonic tones heard only by dogs to stop them from barking. It’s No. 4 on the list of the 60 top sellers on sale in the late spring 2009 catalog.

Among Ms. Aguilera’s top five all-time favorite products in the SkyMall catalog: The Bug Vacuum, currently the No. 5 best seller. She uses it to rid her home of any desert insects that survive the exterminator.

“I gave this to all my sisters one year at Christmas,” she said. “They are still sucking up scorpions. Now if they could only invent one that would suck up small snakes.”